


A Little Bird Told Me

by st_aurafina



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Talking To Birds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 15:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16789507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: John assumed from the pseudonyms that Harold was fond of birds, but apparently there was more to it.





	A Little Bird Told Me

John had always assumed from the pseudonyms that Harold was fond of birds, but apparently there was more to it. The way he spoke to the pigeons as he fed them, for example, a conversational back and forth exchange. John would have written it off as eccentricity, or, in the early stages of their relationship, an affectation, until he noticed that the pigeons were responding to Harold.

"You've had enough," Harold had said, to a bossy and rotund bird. "Walk it off; let someone else have a turn at the front." The bird had eyed him, pivoted and stalked to the back of the crowd at Harold's feet. 

Or the time a crow had swooped them both, obviously realised that Harold was Somebody in bird-land, and did the most amazing airborne double take John had ever seen. 

"I should think so," Harold had muttered under his breath as he limped along. 

So Harold could talk to birds, so what? It was weird, but compared to an ASI giving them instructions via payphone, John was willing to let it slide. That was, until one day when Harold was taken hostage at a warehouse while investigating a number. 

John, working the number from a different angle, didn't realise for some time but when he hadn't heard from Harold for an hour, he called. A recorded message told him that this number was no longer in operation, which meant the phone was bricked, which meant Harold was in trouble. John shoved his own phone in his pocket and ran for the warehouse. 

As he prowled the exterior of the building a small brown sparrow alighted on John's shoulder. It had a paper pellet held in its beak. John held out his hand, caught the pellet and read Harold's instructions, minutely written. 

_Seven armed. Four hostages. Rear office. No injuries._

John eyed the small bird, and it tilted its head from side to side, eyeing him in return. "Can you take a message back?" he said, feeling stupid but obviously it was worth a try. 

He scrawled on the paper: _West wall. Keep clear. Ten minutes._ He folded it up, following Harold's precise lines exactly so that it collapsed to the size of a breadcrumb. When he held it out to the bird, the little creature hopped forward on his shoulder, stopping at every step to watch him beadily, then snatched the paper from between his finger and thumb in a flutter of wings. He lost track of the tiny thing under the eaves of the warehouse. Then he went to steal a garbage truck. 

The truck demolished one half of the warehouse, breaking through the walls like a fist through a newspaper. Harold and the other hostages were safely behind a hurriedly overturned desk. The opposing Mafiosi crews didn't fare so well, shoved hard through an interior wall into a pile of stolen sofas. 

John climbed out of the cab, ducked under the swirling starlings disturbed by his destruction, and went to check that Harold and the other hostages were unharmed. The gangsters made a satisfying tangle of limbs and low-cost furniture. 

"This warehouse is off-limits, fellas," he said to the groaning mass of men. He ducked as one of the starlings swooped him. "If I hear a whisper from either of your families that you're using this place to move your stolen goods, I'll come back with a whole fleet of trucks." Something flashed past his face and he flinched, bringing his weapon up. 

There were two starlings dive-bombing him with a vengeance. One of them, apparently blind with fury, hit him hard in the temple. It was surprisingly painful, but John still managed to catch the stunned bird in his palm. It lay on its back with its legs in the air, and for a moment John was worried he had killed it with his own skull. 

Harold came up beside John, and addressed the bird in his open palm. "Don't be so melodramatic," he said in a chiding tone. Then his expression softened as the other starling fluttered over to him, chirping vigorously. "I know, I know, he did make a big mess but there's no need for theatrics." 

"What's happening here, Harold?" In John's palm, the little bird rolled to its feet and stood there with a sheepish, downcast expression. 

Harold sighed, and gestured to the other starling. It swooped fast but made a neat landing, curling its feet around his index finger like a perch. "Come along, Mr Reese." With his spare hand, he caught up the handle of an orange plastic pumpkin left over from Halloween, and tucked it under his arm. 

John followed him, still cupping the small bird in his palm. At the sagging corner of the warehouse, Harold pointed out a small nest glued to the eaves with mud and leaves. "If you would be so kind as to gather it up – gently, please. There are eggs inside."

"I thought you weren't supposed to touch nests," John said. The starling he held shook itself all over in apparent disgust, and left him to perch on Harold's shoulder. Thus liberated, John climbed carefully up on the debris and reached for the nest. It felt dry and light, and it separated from the wall in one piece. The inside was lined with pale green fluff – John recognised the colour from a crate of stuffed dinosaurs in the warehouse – and three bright blue eggs sat in the very middle. 

"It's a myth that birds will abandon the nest if a human goes near it," Harold said. The two starlings circled his head like two orbiting electrons as he walked. "But do please be very careful."

John carried the nest and eggs as if they were about to explode. At the next warehouse, Harold found a likely place to hang the planter, then stepped back for John to place the nest inside. 

The two starlings immediately flew to the planter, chirping and complaining, turning their eggs over carefully, and peering over the edge to complain further to Harold. 

"I think you'll find it more than adequate," Harold told them. "Please accept my apologies for the disturbance." He turned, then blinked at John with a displeased expression. He looked back at the birds. "Was that entirely necessary?" 

John glanced down and saw a chalky deposit on his shoulder, surprisingly large considering the size of the bird that had made it. 

"I'm so sorry," said Harold. He offered his pocket square. "They're not at their best, as you can appreciate." 

John dabbed at the stain. "It's okay, Finch. You pay for the suits. You can pay for the dry cleaning." 

Still, the next time John had to chase a guy along a rooftop, he took extra care not to kick any nests, and despite Fusco's disgust, took to throwing his crumbs to the pigeons. 

"What, you're a bleeding heart all of a sudden? They're the rats of the sky!" Scoffing, Fusco raised his own sandwich to take a bite. A crow shot past him, feet outstretched, and Fusco's sandwich was suddenly gone, leaving him holding nothing but air. 

John snickered.

"Do you know something you're not telling me?" Fusco said. "Apart from all the other things you're not telling me, of course." 

"It's not what you know, Lionel," said John, watching the crow circle upwards to a ledge with its treasure. "It's who you know that matters."


End file.
